


Vellichor

by Frostberry



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, Post shinobi world, bookshops i love bookshops
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-06-13 22:57:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15375261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frostberry/pseuds/Frostberry
Summary: A man who comes in who can’t read. Kakuzu’s hobby in a post-shinobi world is owning this old bookshop, which is in the back of an dingy alleyway in Amegakure near a train station. Hidan needs to be able to read the Jashinistic scripture. He has three hours to spend time learning to read with this old man in time for his next lecture at the University of Amegakure. Friendship!Fic





	Vellichor

At ninety one years old, Kakuzu should have retired a while ago. The dingy little bookshop, named  _ The Hidden Waterfall,  _ was a second hand bookshop that specialized in antique first editions. This was how Kakuzu paid his Ame council tax, by auctioning rare first editions of  _ Tales of the Gallant Jiraiya  _ and  _ The Encyclopedia of Pre-Shinobi Wars   _ to rich daimyos. The bookshop was small, with no more than ten people in it at a time could come in. It was up to the ceiling crammed with books, giving off faint mothball smells and paper. 

Shinobi days were long gone, peace had arrived and nobody needed to kill each other anymore. All crimes were forgiven, people moved onto more ordinary jobs like supermarket cashiers and firefighting. Kakuzu used the money from his extensive wealth as a bounty hunter to buy an old bookshop as a retirement gift, and still had a cash flow from his collection of books featuring fables from extinct clans and old  _ Icha Icha Tactics  _ ; the latter an old favourite with Konoha ex-Shinobi. 

Amegakure had transformed into a pitstop for crossover between the large countries, so it was a large bustling community that came together to bring a mixture of specialties from all walks of the earth. Kakuzu’s main customers were from any of the five main countries who needed to buy gifts for friends they were visiting away from home. They picked out books mainly because of where it was from. A popular choice was  _ Individual Tax Returns from Kumogakure in 1995,  _ mainly because of the crisp floaty paper, or the individual stitching of a thick leather bound book from Sunagakure, which used unique knots to sew everything together.

Even if the book itself was boring; Kakuzu glanced at it nonchaletendly as a woman in Suna had come in for it. She paid five hundred ryo, and chatted in her thick Sunan accent the entire time, telling Kakuzu she was going on a bachelorette party in Kiri and the bride had a shelf in her home dedicated to old books from overseas. She thanked Kakuzu and left, sandals clipping away on the stone floor and opening the door. The little angel bell tinkered, and Kakuzu could hear the light drizzle outside hitting the pipes on the alleyway in front of the shop. The door closed, sending his little store into silence once more. Putting his half moon glasses on, Kakuzu went back to his pile of books he was checking for quality before putting them on the shelf with the sign  _ Date with a Used Book.   _ The woman who ran the foreign sweets shop next door told Kakuzu one day it would be a good opportunity to get rid of old books that won’t sell by putting them in brown paper, tying up with string and putting them on a shelf by the door. It was surprisingly popular; businessman would come in before their train departures to pick something to read, then deposit it at the next bookshop at their destination. Occasionally Kakuzu would get a return of the book from a completely different person, who would have purchased it in another country. 

Kakuzu was putting a little bow tie on the latest book when the door was kicked open, the angel bell banging away and colliding with the  _ Date with a Used Book  _ section.

“Fucking rain,” Kakuzu heard someone say, wiping their feet on the brushy doormat. “Isn’t it ever sunny in this town of crusty pipes!?”

Kakuzu put the book down and glanced up to find a man wearing a suit was actually talking to him. “I’ve got a fucking lecture from stupid students from this stupid town on my class on Religions of Shinobi, so I need to learn how to read. Show me how to fucking read.”

“...What?”

“Are you deaf?” The silver-haired man replied, wiping the rain off his face and looking at Kakuzu with cold pink eyes. “I need to learn how to read in three hours.”

***

TBC

 


End file.
